Inside the more than 600 Roman Catholic hospitals across the country, not a single nun can be found occupying a chief executive suite. Nuns founded and led those hospitals in a mission to treat sick and poor people, but some were also shrewd business leaders. Sister Irene Kraus, a former chief executive of Daughters of Charity National Health System, was famous for coining the phrase "no margin, no mission." It means hospitals must succeed — generating enough revenue to exceed expenses — to fulfill their original mission. Over time, that focus on margins led the hospitals to transform into behemoths that operate for-profit subsidiaries and pay their executives millions.
